Malmö seeks EU project for circular textiles

Malmö's Environment Department has asked the city's environmental committee to approve participation in LOCTEX, an EU-funded project focused on circular textiles, according to MalmöDirekt and city material on Malmö's textile work. The proposal would allow the city to pursue financing and pilot initiatives tied to textile reuse and waste reduction in Malmö. The move comes as Malmö is already involved in EU-backed climate projects and has promoted textile sorting as part of its circular-economy work. City officials have framed textiles as one of the value chains where EU policy and local waste systems are moving in the same direction. ### What exactly is Malmö asking to approve? MalmöDirekt reported that Miljöförvaltningen, the Environment Department, is seeking the environmental committee's clearance to start the EU-financed textile project LOCTEX in the city. The proposal concerns both the pursuit of EU funding and the launch of pilot efforts linked to circular textile handling, the report said. The committee step matters because Malmö's departments need political approval before entering or expanding externally financed projects. (malmodirekt.se) City documents from other international and EU-backed efforts show Malmö routinely runs such work through formal committee and council processes. ### Why is textiles a live issue for Malmö now? A 2023 Malmö city document on circular handling of textiles and textile waste said the textile and clothing sector is economically significant in the European Union and identified textiles as a priority value chain in the EU's circular-economy work. (malmodirekt.se) The same city material was tied to Sweden's implementation of EU waste rules, including separate collection of textiles and textile waste. (malmo.se) Interreg Europe said in a 2025 policy brief that new EU rules had pushed textiles to the top of the policy agenda and that 2025 brought mandatory separate collection and EU-wide extended producer responsibility for textiles, while implementation remained the main challenge for public authorities. ### What does Malmö already have in place on textile recycling? (motenmedborgarportal.malmo.se) Siptex, which Malmö highlights on its website, is described by the city as the world's first large-scale facility of its kind for sorting textiles by color and fiber composition using near-infrared light. Malmö says the system is meant to handle large flows and produce textile fractions suited to different recycling processes. (interregeurope.eu) The city says more than 140,000 tonnes of new textiles are put on the Swedish market each year, while just under 5% are recycled as material. Malmö presents Siptex as a missing link between collection and higher-quality textile recycling at scale. ### How does this fit Malmö's broader EU project work? Malmö said on its website that one of its current climate-transition projects runs from 2024 to 2027 and is co-financed by the EU. (malmo.se) In that project, the city works with business and academia to address practical barriers including technology, financing, regulation and cooperation. That existing structure helps explain why the city would use an EU project to test textile pilots rather than rely only on ordinary municipal operations. Malmö has said EU-backed projects can be used to identify barriers, develop working methods and build cooperation with outside actors. ### Is LOCTEX itself a known EU textile initiative? (malmo.se) The name LOCTEX did not surface in the official project databases and primary EU sources reviewed for this article, so its program structure could not be independently confirmed from those sources. What can be confirmed is that the EU is funding multiple textile-circularity projects, including Circula-TEX under Horizon Europe, and that Interreg Europe is running textile-focused policy work for regional and local authorities. (malmo.se) That leaves MalmöDirekt as the direct source for the LOCTEX name and the committee proposal. The city-side context around textiles, EU financing and municipal process is supported by Malmö's own material and EU project sources. ### What happens next in Malmö? The next step is a decision by Malmö's environmental committee on whether the Environment Department can proceed with LOCTEX and the related pilot work, as described by MalmöDirekt. (cordis.europa.eu) If the committee approves, the city would be able to move ahead with the EU-financing track and project implementation under the proposed setup. (malmodirekt.se)